Living with Covid-19

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I will take the Prime Minister’s statement, if I may, as his application to join the Covid Recovery Group. He is very welcome indeed; I only wish it had been made sooner. All the lockdowns and the serious restrictions were implemented using the Public Health Act (Control of Disease) 1984. Some of those restrictions were made by ministerial decree, and were approved by Parliament only retrospectively. If we are to believe that next time will be different, why does this plan not include proposals to change the Act now, in order to make Ministers more accountable to Parliament, rather than our kicking this into the long grass and waiting for the results of the covid public inquiry?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my right hon. Friend is a staunch Thatcherite; he will recall that it was Margaret Thatcher who promulgated the public health Act in 1984, and it has served this country well for a long time. I will consider the point that he makes—it is a valuable one—but I think it may also be something that the inquiry will want to consider itself.

Sue Gray Report

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

We have been asked to keep some sense of perspective, and I think that is right. The question here is whether those who make the law obey the law—that is pretty fundamental. Many, including some of my constituents, have questioned the Prime Minister’s honesty, integrity and fitness to hold that office. In judging him, he rightly asked us to wait for all the facts. Sue Gray has made it clear in her update that she could not produce a meaningful report with the facts, so may I ask the Prime Minister the question that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) asked, and to which he did not give an answer? When Sue Gray produces all the facts in her full report after the police investigation, will the Prime Minister commit to publishing it immediately and in full?

[The Prime Minister]

What we have to do is wait for the police to conclude their inquiries. That is the proper thing to do. People have given all sorts of evidence in the expectation that it would not necessarily be published. At that stage, I will take a decision about what to publish.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Ni hao, as we say to the right hon. Gentleman. Renshi ni hen gao xing! I do not agree with him, Mr Speaker. I want to go on and deliver on the people’s priorities. This Government were elected with an enormous mandate to level up across our country, and that is what we will do.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I hope the Prime Minister will forgive me for not being extraordinarily grateful for the withdrawal of these measures. I and many colleagues did not think that they were necessary in December, but I do, none the less, welcome their removal. May I draw his attention to a further policy which it would be helpful for him to reconsider? The Government’s current plan is to say to our valuable NHS staff that if they refuse to be vaccinated, they are to be sacked. Those sackings are to commence in a couple of weeks’ time, with no compensation. We know now that the Secretary of State is being advised by his own officials that, due to the lack of protection against transmission, this needs to be rethought. May I urge the Prime Minister to rethink this policy? We should not reward our NHS staff, for all their dedication, with the sack. We should allow them to continue doing the valuable work that they deliver to our great country.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend and respect very much the points of view that he has put across consistently throughout this pandemic. It has been very important that we have had a voice speaking up for freedom in the way that he has done. But I have to think also of those who will be at the bedside of elderly and vulnerable people who are dying of nosocomially acquired covid, and their feelings about our failure to get vaccination rates up high enough within the NHS. It is a very grim problem, as I am sure my right hon. Friend can understand.

Nobody wants to have compulsory vaccination, but since the policy was announced, rates of vaccination within the NHS have gone up notably, and that is a positive thing. We will reflect on the way ahead. We do not want to drive people out of the service, but it is a professional responsibility of everybody looking after the health of others within our NHS to get vaccinated. I hope my right hon. Friend agrees with that.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful, but I must say that throughout the pandemic the public have continually surprised on the upside with their determination to take this seriously. Rather than undermining confidence in them, a very high proportion of them continue to do the right thing and I believe always will.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

May I press the Prime Minister on a couple of previous answers? He has come to the House today to extend plan B restrictions for a further three weeks, but he will know that the chief scientific adviser has said that covid is going to be with us forever, and we are going to have variants forever, so may I press him on his answer to our right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) about an exit strategy? We cannot respond to every new variant in the way we have to this one. We must have a plan to live as normal with this virus forever. When will he set out that plan in this House so that we all know where we stand?

[The Prime Minister]

If my right hon. Friend looks at what we are doing, he will see that the measures we have in place expire on 26 January, as he knows. Whatever the situation may be then, we will continue with the fundamental tools that we have—that is, vaccination, therapeutics and testing. But it is important that omicron already seems to provide some sort of immunity against delta. That is a point that he should feed into his capacious brain.

Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

May I commend you, Mr Speaker, for the statement you made before this debate started? I agreed with every word. I also commend the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing the debate.

Usually I start by saying, “It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate…”, but on this occasion, it is not, really. I regret that we are here today, and it is most unfortunate. Let me say a brief word about the specific case of Mr Owen Paterson. I read the Standards Committee report in full and I listened to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) last week. The report was clear and unambiguous, and I fully support what he said. I hope that those on the Treasury Bench can resolve the matter tomorrow in the way that he set out. That would be helpful for the reputation of the House and for Mr Paterson to put this matter to bed, rather than its remaining an issue of continuing controversy. I also note speculation in the press about a peerage for Mr Paterson, and I hope Ministers can rule that out. That would be a mistake and most regrettable.

On the process, I commend the members of the Committee who have spoken. They spoke very well. A lay member of the Committee, Tammy Banks, did an interview at the weekend in some detail. If it were listened to by members of the public, it would reassure them that there is a robust and independent process to hold Members of this House to a high standard. I thank the commissioner and the Committee—the Members of the House who are members and the lay members—for the work they do, generally un-thanked and unappreciated, but which I think is very important.

Personally, I think that the process that the Committee follows is pretty fair. I am sure there could be improvements, and I look forward to the Committee’s investigation into the code of conduct and any suggestions it may have. I hope those can be taken forward in a cross-party way.

As a former Government Chief Whip, I may be permitted, I hope, a couple of points about whipping. The decision we took last week was on a House matter, and in my view House business should not be whipped—it should be a free vote. I made that position clear privately. It is how I conducted myself in the vote last week. I voted against the amendment because I thought it important to uphold the standards of this House for everyone in it.

My second point on whipping is that politics is a team game; it is essential to work with one’s colleagues to deliver anything. If the team captain is to expect loyalty and Back Benchers and Ministers to listen to the direction of the team captain, they deserve decisions that are well thought through and soundly based. If on occasion, as on this occasion—the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster set it out very well, and he was a very valued member of my Whips Office, and he did apologise on behalf of the Government—the team captain gets it wrong, he should come and apologise to the public and to this House. That is the right thing to do to demonstrate leadership.

Finally, it is important, when this House debates standards in public life, that every Member remembers that we are judged on the decisions we make. I was elected in 2005, so I was in this House when we had to live through the expenses scandal, which enveloped Members on both sides. Despite the fact that I was never caught up in that and had a completely clean bill of health, it is the only time in my 16 years as a Member of Parliament that when I was at a social function and someone asked me what I did, I was ashamed to say I am a Member of Parliament. I am not going to do anything or allow anyone to do anything that takes us back to those dark times. I will do everything I can to avoid us getting there. No one is going to stop me conducting myself in a way that keeps us free of that reputation-damaging era. We have to have high standards and improve them. That is what every Member of the House wants to achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Geraint Davies. Not here.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I strongly support what the Paymaster General has said, and I welcome the team to their positions.

When I had responsibility for these matters, I visited and spoke to the electoral officials in Northern Ireland, which has had this system for 18 years and where it works perfectly well. People in Northern Ireland are perfectly capable of using it, and I have no doubt that it will be a great success when we roll it out in the rest of the United Kingdom. Frankly, these scare stories are more likely to depress voter turnout than the introduction of voter ID.

[Michael Ellis]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, as usual. Any eligible voter who does not have one of the required forms of ID—and there are very few of them—would be able to apply for a free local voter card from their local authority. As he says, this has been working extremely well in Northern Ireland, which in fact has had an ID requirement since 1985—it is the photographic ID requirement it has had since 2003. So the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) is perpetuating scare stories here.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the hon. Lady echoes the thoughts of millions of people. There is not a family in this country that has not been touched by cancer. Childhood cancer is particularly tragic, which is why the Government are investing huge sums in research and also in supporting some of the fantastic charities that she mentions, particularly those investigating brain cancers.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

Q12. Dr Camilla Kingdon, the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, thinks that the routine testing of children without covid symptoms is still interrupting children and teenagers’ school attendance and does not believe that it should continue. She thinks that covid should be treated like other diseases and that only children with symptoms should be dealt with. I agree with her and her colleagues in the royal college; does the Prime Minister agree with them?

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for Dr Kingdon as I have for my right hon. Friend. It is one of a number of views in the scientific community, but we continue to think that testing is a very important route for keeping schools open, which is the best possible thing for the physical and mental health of our kids.

Health and Social Care

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I say to the hon. Member is that, frankly, she should take that up with the former leaders of the Labour party, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and all the former Ministers responsible who did absolutely nothing to fix the problem when they were in office. It is this Government dealing with it now.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

The Prime Minister was absolutely right to focus on the importance of the social care workforce. Unfortunately, the Government’s own estimate is that due to our compulsory vaccination measures, 40,000 people in that workforce will leave the sector by November. Are there urgent measures in his plan that the Government will take to replace those missing care workers so that we can deliver the high-quality care that I think everyone in the House wants to see?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about compulsory vaccination. I believe it is the right thing, and, in the ways that I have described, we are making sure that we encourage more people to join the social care workforce, with the £500 million of investment and the training places. We must also understand that many of those social care workers are leaving to join the NHS, where vaccination is not currently compulsory. Almost 10% of NHS frontline workers are not vaccinated. That is something on which we need to reflect, and that is why we are having a consultation on the way forward for the NHS. I do not think it is right that almost one in 10 frontline NHS workers should be unvaccinated against covid.

Afghanistan

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I must reject that in the strongest possible terms. The House has paid tribute, quite rightly, to the work of the armed services over the last few weeks and months, but it should also pay tribute to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s rapid reaction team who went to Afghanistan, and to the Border Force officials who went out there, who worked hand in glove to help thousands of people come to this country in safety.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

In terms of protecting our country now that the risk from terrorists has undoubtedly increased, what is the Prime Minister’s assessment not just of the Taliban’s willingness to deal with terrorists operating in Afghanistan, but of their capability to deal with that terrorist threat, given what we saw from ISIS-K just a week or so ago?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the risks that the Taliban are themselves running, because they now possess the government of Afghanistan and it is their responsibility. They clearly face that threat from IS-K and indeed potentially other groups. Of course they will do everything, I imagine, to protect the public, but in the end we have to face the reality that the Taliban have now got the problem. We will do everything we can, of course, to ensure that we guard against future outbreaks of terrorism from that country, but it is in the interests of the new Government of Afghanistan to crack down on terrorism as much as anybody else.

Afghanistan

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in the House just a few weeks ago, there was an extensive defence review about the Afghan mission after the combat mission ended in 2014, and I believe that most of the key questions have already been extensively gone into. It is important that we in this House should today be able to scrutinise events as they unfold.

As I was saying, we succeeded in that core mission, and the training camps in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan were destroyed. Al-Qaeda plots against this country were foiled because our serving men and women were there, and no successful terrorist attacks against the west have been mounted from Afghan soil for two decades.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

May I take the Prime Minister back to his remarks in the House on 8 July, when he referred to the assessment that he had made? There has clearly been a catastrophic failure of our intelligence, or our assessment of the intelligence, because of the speed with which this has caught us unawares. Can he set out for the House how we may assure ourselves that in future years no terrorist attacks put together in Afghanistan take place here in the United Kingdom?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it would be fair to say that the events in Afghanistan have unfolded faster, and the collapse has been faster, than I think even the Taliban themselves predicted. What is not true is to say that the UK Government were unprepared or did not foresee this, because it was certainly part of our planning. The very difficult logistical operation for the withdrawal of UK nationals has been under preparation for many months, and I can tell the House that the decision to commission the emergency handling centre at the airport—the commissioning of that centre—took place two weeks ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right but, of course, this was a NATO intervention, and it is to NATO that we have to look when there are serious threats to international security, particularly those affecting western interests.

The point is that it has to be flexible, because al-Qaeda itself is very flexible. An active containment policy of this sort can track and match the flexibility of the terrorists. Such a policy depends on the maintenance of integrated and highly mobile land forces, positioned in regional strategic base and bridgehead areas.

[Mr Mark Harper]

My right hon. Friend is Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and for this strategy to be successful it requires excellent intelligence with good analysis so that Ministers can make sound decisions. In this case, I fear that has not been the case. Does his Committee have any plans to investigate the intelligence failures in this case so that we can deliver the strategy he is so excellently setting out?

[Dr Lewis]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend approves of the strategy, but I said earlier that this speech on defence is, if anything, in my capacity as a former Chairman of the Defence Committee. I am not in a position at this stage to say anything publicly about what the ISC might or might not agree to do, but obviously his suggestion is pertinent.

The point about strategic base and bridgehead areas is that they contain integrated forces that are ready to strike and then withdraw, and then to strike again whenever and wherever needed––in Afghanistan or in any other susceptible state that becomes what our Defence Secretary and now our Prime Minister have rightly described as “breeding grounds” for al-Qaeda or similar international terrorist groups. Proportionate military initiatives could be taken, and interventions made, without undue logistical complexity and without getting sucked into full scale counter-insurgency campaigning while the terrorists redirect their efforts to neighbouring countries, leaving us mired in the original countries from which they operated.

Active containment is the hard-headed solution to an otherwise intractable dilemma: whether to allow terrorists to attack us with impunity or whether to shoulder the unending burden of indefinitely occupying every reckless rogue state that shelters and supports them. It is okay for people to say, “This is over. There is no way we are going back into Afghanistan.” However, I do not want to be here, in the years or months to come, after another spectacular al-Qaeda type attack on a western country, with people looking around once again for a strategy because we are in a situation, as it seems we are, where the President of the United States can see only total withdrawal on one side or endless commitment on the other.

There is a flexible middle way, and it is an adaptation of the way in which we successfully saw off our cold war confrontation. It worked then, in a very different context, and it would work now in this context, too.